There are but a handful of quotes that I’ve found truly memorable. I discount those which are too well-known: “I have a dream…” was great, but it gets lost as something familiar. Much like the Mona Lisa, most people are marginally familiar with it, and thus don’t stop to truly appreciate it. But as the years have gone by, a few quotes have stuck out at me, which I’ve cataloged here.
“Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.”
—Samuel Butler, a less-popular British writer from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
This one seems to sum up so brilliantly the adventure that is life. We must experience “life” every day of our lives, yet we are never quite prepared for all aspects of it. We learn by our mistakes, but many of those mistakes occur in full view of the world.
“There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured with what is right in America.”
—William Jefferson Clinton, 42nd President of the United States
From time to time, I’ll come to see status quo in America as almost unsalvageable, a bleak outlook doomed for failure. But this quote so succinctly conveys all that America is about: even as things seem particularly gloomy, the whole government is modeled around allowing change when change is due.
“There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America—there’s the United States of America.”
—Barack Hussein Obama, U.S. Senator and the Democratic Presidential Nominee, speaking at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, MA
This sentiment is nothing new, yet it’s something that hasn’t been voiced in a long time. Thomas Jefferson is known for his statement, “We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists” in his inaugural address more than 200 years ago. And yet it remains a poignant quote at this time in history, when the two parties seem to be part of an ever-widening schism. We all want what is best for America, we just disagree on how to get there. More importantly, though, we agree on something like 95% of the issues, but all too often gloss over those agreements and head straight to the narrow issues where we differ.
Similarly,
“[W]e are not as divided as our politics suggests. [W]e are one people… We are one nation.”
—Barack Hussein Obama, U.S. Senator and the Democratic Presidential Nominee, in his New Hampshire Concession Speech in January, 2008
And another gem from him,
“We can disagree without being disagreeable.”
—Barack Hussein Obama, U.S. Senator and the Democratic Presidential Nominee
I believe he’s attributed that phrase to someone before, but I don’t recall who.
I want to be careful to avoid a political bent here, though with four quotes from Democrats, it’s probably clear which way I lean. Thus, a total change in topics:
“Sometimes we don’t do things we want to do, so that others will not know we want to do them.”
—Ivy Walker in The Village.
This struck me from more of a psychological reading aspect: the pointed lack of something can indicate its presence, if you will. This is made clearer in its full context: “When I was younger, you used to hold my arm when I walked. Then suddenly you stopped. One day, I even tripped in your presence and nearly fell. I was faking, of course, but still you did not hold me. Sometimes we don’t do things we want to do so that others will not know we want to do them.”